Picture imperfect

Steven Huff snapped photos, rapid fire, from inside the barrel of a wave, hoping to capture that almost spiritual blend of early morning sun and glinting ocean water and indescribable energy.

The location –
inside a wave – is one of Huff's favorite views on Earth, what salt-water junkies sometimes describe as a “magical” place to be.

… Click click cli...

Huff, 30, had been into taking pictures of waves, as much or more than riding them, for just a few months. The Huntington Beach native and longtime surfer felt inspired by some icons of surf photography, artists like Clark Little and Robbie Crawford.

So it was that on this day – Feb. 3, Super Bowl Sunday – Huff had, before sunrise, wriggled into a wetsuit, hood, booties and fins so he could take pictures of a 6- to 8-foot, northwest swell hitting Seal Beach.

“I was guessing it would be a pretty good day,” he says.

He'd been in the water about 30 minutes when he says he got “a little too ambitious” trying to capture the perfect shot of one barrel.

What happened next happened fast.

Backwash pushed Huff to the top of a steep wave and, within seconds, he was spiked down into hard sand covered by only a few inches of water.

Later, clicking through that morning's images, Huff discovered that he and his GoPro camera had snapped a shot of the barrel that would change his life.

The pain was sharp, stabbing and intense – the worst, he says, of his life.

Imagine stepping off a 6-foot wall. Imagine landing, in seated position, on the ground.

That's essentially what had happened to Huff.

Huff, on the sand, was tossed by two more waves. The sets tore his fins off his feet.

When the water receded, Huff was on his side.

His first thought was a question:

Am I paralyzed?

Huff wriggled his toes. He could move his feet; a good sign.

But the pain…

Huff elbowed his way up to a high sand berm. He lay on his back and side for about 20 minutes.

Two other surf photographers, Stan Moniz and Adam Huss, were near Huff that morning, snapping sets near Ocean and Dolphin Avenues, and they came over to check on him.

“You OK?” one of them asked.

“Uhh… Not really. I can't get up, dude.”

Huff elbowed his way up and over the berm. Not wanting to miss the moment, he took a shot of himself painfully maneuvering his way across the sand.

Moniz and Huss then helped Huff to his truck. He couldn't use the pedals, so Moniz drove him to the garage he rents at a home a half-block from the beach.

Huff spent a couple of hours in the bathtub. He managed to make it to college classes the next day. A friend drove him.

A burst fracture of the L1, the uppermost segment of the lumbar spine. The L1 essentially was shattered. Pieces of the bone projected backward and bruised Huff's spinal cord.

Lee has seen less traumatic injuries cause paralysis. Yet here was Huff, walking into his office.

“He's definitely a very lucky young man,” Lee says. “He was very lucky we operated when we did.”

On Feb. 13, Huff was whisked into surgery. Lee made an 8-inch incision down the center of his back and placed titanium anchors and rods above and below the site of his injury.

Huff, who is studying at Golden West College, figures it was divine intervention that saved him from serous injury.

“I believe it wasn't time for me to be paralyzed,” he says. “I really believe that.”

Huff, a lean 5-foot-8 with expressive eyes and a recently grown handlebar mustache he habitually twirls, explains this while sitting in Bowl of Heaven, a smoothie and acai-bowl joint in Huntington Harbour.

He's here to hang up some of his photographs. Bowl of Heaven is allowing Huff to display his work for sale.

He wears a dark-green wristband inscribed “Miracles Happen.”

Huff is pursuing volunteer work for the They Will Surf Again program run by the nonprofit Life Rolls On Foundation. The group helps disabled people get into the ocean.

Huff is happy to be on the helping side of that group. He's mobile, but gingerly so. He still wears a brace. Lee told him he's not supposed to get into the water for at least six months. It's not clear if he's followed that order as strictly as he should.

Huff has stopped taking pain meds in favor of natural aromatic compounds found in the seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers and other parts of plants.

“The pain,” Huff says, “is totally manageable now.”

Lee expects Huff to fully recover. Huff says he's thrilled and grateful to be able to just walk.

“Even though I have this metal in my back,” Huff says, “I'm happy.”

He says his brush with disaster has made him grateful.

“Anyone can get hurt,” Huff says. “Even pro surfers die.”

He gazes at the picture of the wave that almost paralyzed him. He says looking at it doesn't creep him out.

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